What I wanted to say is that intonation, just in any language is a means to convey the additional message in the form of emotion! =)))
When it goes about standard unemotional sentences at a beginner level it’s fairly simple, to the extent that one may restrict himself to 3 or 4 or whatever intonation patterns!
But it suddenly becomes WAY more complicated, as for the intonation patterns, when it comes to conveying various emotionally charged messages and it has nothing to do with all that blablabla about “Russia is a misterious soul” and all that stuff! =)) Intonation correlation with the specific emotions is an extremely complicated matter in ANY language! =)) However, it’s a universal truth that NO native speaker of ANY language ever feels this being an extremely complicated matter!
Again, I’d like to point out that analyzing the intonation pattern itself is much less complicated issue and this is where IPA too, is of quite a help, or the Chinese tone system, or whatever the system capable of depicting voice pitch change rate and range!
The real complication is in this correlation as I said earlier! This is where the REAL hardship begins! =)))
I suspect that these intonational contours are an over-simplification, but thy might be moderately helpful in pointing a foreigner in the right direction, which will help him to be more observant.
I think this YouTube lesson is enough for the introduction to the Russian pronunciation - and then just listen to the native speakers - that’s all.
Pauler complicates and dramatizes the Russian intonation. My most foreign students have never had the real difficulties with this problem though they had some difficulties with the declention and conjuhation and some problems with the vocabulary.
The article with all this diagrtams is awful!
I don’t believe that someone can understand all these pictures and can speak really well after reading of such articles!
It is boring, complicate and of no use in my opinion.
As we’d been studying itonations for the whole three years, I have to admit the article from the book is absolutely up to the point! =)) The file name itself emphasizes the interrelation between the intonation and the meaning it conveys!
No doubt, studens will hardly ever have any problems with the simplified intonation patterns in the simple sentences they use while studying Russian, true that! =)))
What I was talking about is a REAL true-to-life intonation in the Russian sentences! =))) It’s way more complicated than it seems at first, just as any authentic intonation in any language!
Thanks for offer. I can’t match most of that speakers voice with the visual of the intonation pattern. A few seem as the sound graph shows, but mostly I hear an up and down pattern in that speakers voice. Phonetics, part 3 — LearnRussian
I get the idea though. Here at LingQ I can hear the differences between statements and questions in Evgueny’s voice in his lessons. I think using tone for questions and statements can come naturally from talking with people. I did finally get a microphone so I could get signed up for Skype. I’ve seen some posts here looking to talk with people.
As for that Russia Today resource, if you could, please, specify which of the graphs does not coincide with that of the actual voice pitch movement in the sound example? =)) I could try to figure it out then, as I feel it may be very much the case they really do not coincide!
I also have a mic and a headphones headset, so it would be just no problem at all to try this on Skype! =)) My Skype is: pauler40 I’ll finish my translation project, in a few hours, I guess, and I’ll be available then!
Intonation 1 the accent syllable is so dominant it’s hard to tell tone goes down at end for me. That might just be untrained ear hearing accent first.
Мне холодно.
Сегодня выходной.
Intonation 3 is the group that I can’t match the tones I’m hearing with that chart.
Ты работаешь здесь?
Можно кофе?
Марк играет в футбол?
Intonation 4 like above, to me it doesn’t match graph.
Меня зовут Мария, а тебя?
You, a native Russian speaker, studied Russian intonation for 3 years? How many hours a day?
I’m sorry, but I have to agree with evgueny40 again. This line of reasoning reminds me of a certain member who is always trying to get people worried about the pitch accent in Japanese. Japanese is probably the easiest language in the world to pronounce, and the pitch accent isn’t complicated or very important, but he just keeps trying to get learners to analyze the IPA, etc.
Because it was back then, at the university, we normally did not bother to even think of calculating any hours at all, surprise as it may be for you! And, yes, you’re right, Russian intonation for three years, you did understand me correctly!
Being worried about the pitch accent in Japanese, surely IS an issue, I do agree! Every language is the EASIEST one, but not until after you began studying it as your PROFESSIONAL language, not just as a means to be a superficial chatter-box which has nothing to do with mastering a language on a professional basis!
As for the Japanese, even this aspect alone, i.e. tonal stress, or pitch accent which is basically the same, causes a lot of headache whenever you have to render a Japanese word, say, in Russian, as Russian is way more sensitive to the stress position within a word and native Russians do not care at all in this case if you have a superficial knowledge of their native language or of Japanese! All they know is that the stress position in this or that Japanese word should be this and only this, the rest of the variants are just errors! =))))
Being just a superficial diletant is not something one should be really proud of! I do not have any doubt, however, that you are a legit expert in some other branch of knowledge, so it’s no big deal!
